


Nova

by Hecatetheviolet



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: :3c, And other antics, Catharsis, Families of Choice, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Human Limits, I Lied about the mostly comfort, In the usual Natsume way, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mythology - Freeform, Natsume Does It Agian, Present Tense, Psuedo possesion, Sickness, Sleep Deprivation, Stars, Suspense, White haired Natsume, Yôkai, like the manga, mostly comfort, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-06-30 21:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecatetheviolet/pseuds/Hecatetheviolet
Summary: The explosion of worlds and darkness and chaos is what births stars, births yokai. Natsume has been a force of great chaos for generations; it is only natural that a great power heralds a great destruction. Not every end is a death, not everything lost can be regenerated.





	1. Sewing

Natsume wakes slowly, softly. Awareness drifts in with the tender fuzz of a fever, and the dull, pink light of early morning fills in the tiny gaps between his squinted eyelids.

 

His own wall and open window greet him once he is able to blink his eyes open more fully. The sight is familiar and immensely relieving, even as exhaustion drags him down again. The drifting curtains, the small, tinkling chime, a bird cooing in the dawn, the closely tucked blanket, Nyanko settled beside him, staring hard with glittering eyes and an unreadable expression...

 

Ah, a normal morning. He's so tired though, and it doesn'tt feel like anyone has called to wake him, so he allows himself to drift again. It is so rare that Natsume is able to sleep in, he may as well enjoy it. The quiet billowing of the curtain is the last thing he sees as his eyes drift shut again.

 

The dream that was waiting for him filters back in.

 

A huge, dark forest, close and pressing and warm, looms around him. The earth beneath his bare feet is warm and soft, padded with many Autumn's worth of leaves that have remained unrotted. Branches cover the sky completely, but the light of a full moon shines from every angle, casting deep shadows edged in silver all around.

 

Without Natsume noticing, the forest became a wide cave. Something settles across from him, something glowing, something bright. It is infinitely beautiful, and infinitely lonely. Sympathy for it brings tears to his eyes and sends him lurching forward, into the shallow pool of water that separates them.

 

It is bitingly cold against the warmth of the dream, and it freezes its way across his body, pulling at his form like string.

 

Suddenly, he slips.

 

The jolt that forces him awake is painful, and leaves his heart pounding in his chest as he gasps for breath.

 

He slowly lowers the arms he'd raised to shield his face from the dawn and meets Nyanko's fierce stare. His guardians eyes thin slowly, looking both through Natsume and past him. He doesn't have to ask if the cat has sensed his dream. If his dream means something.

 

He will be more careful today.

 

* * *

 

Nyanko says nothing more than a cryptic warning and the day passes normally. By Natsume's definition.

 

In fact, it's a downright pleasant day. Not a single injury, no running, all his chores finished, no yokai bother his family or friends, no exorcists appear, friendly or not - it feels more like a dream than the dream did.

 

Natsume is not avoiding sleep. He's tired from the early wake up and a long, normal day helping out Touko in the garden. It's easy to overwork himself when he helps her, since he knows she gets back pain from weeding too much and can't stay in the heat too long. Granted, Natsume isn't much better, but it feels good to take some of the burden from her. To hear her call it thier garden. 

 

The soreness in his limbs is well worth it, as is the minor sunburn on the back of his neck. It also kept him distracted once he returned home.

 

He's trying not to think about it.

 

It - the dream, the single, strange dream that had invaded his mind as easily as a familiar song - sits like a memory, stuck to his thoughts. It feels like something long lost, a cruel memory quickly repressed but always hiding in the shadows, ready to spring free.

 

Somehow, that is worse than a yokai.

 

Natsume - is not avoiding sleeping, but he is kneeling before his desk, looking over a box of gifts he's received from yokai. Some are sacrifices to the great, powerful Natsume-Reiko-Who-Is-Takashi. Most are gifts from those he calls friends.

 

Those usually make their way up to his shelf, proudly displayed within sight. Despite the sometimes apparent otherworldliness about them, Natsume doesn't mind precious things like Tama's nest being seen. It feels nice, to have such beloved objects.

 

Today, however, it is the sacrifices that he is sorting through. Talismans, blessed objects, a shiny rock, tiny shrines and keys and gates, seals and papers... there has to be something here that can help ward off unwanted dreams. All these things are infused with good intent, gifted to Natsume to ward him and help him and save him. 

 

Sensei is already asleep soundly. Natsume sighs at him from the corner of his eye as he closes the box and sets it back in the closet. He still can't really sense them well enough to tell the exact intent. Can't read the blessings the way he can read yokai writing. Sensei probably wouldn't help him choose the correct one, anyway.

 

Natsume hesitates again, watching the cat happily passed out in a sloppy position snore and twitch his paws. His futon has been out for hours, properly fluffed with one corner turned down, in more of an effort to avoid looking like he didn't intend to sleep than in any real preparation for sleeping. 

 

He really is tired, though. He wants to sleep. But the dream is lurking, already anchored. He can sense that, even as he pulls the cord on the light, even as he carefully tucks himself in.

 

He isn't sure he'll be sleeping tonight.

 

* * *

 

Natsume sleeps, and it comes again.

 

It begins in the pond, which has swelled into a thin lake. The glowing thing still rests on the far shore. Suffering pours out of it like light, making his heart clench painfully and his eyes fill with helpless tears. He's too far away - he _needs_ to help it -

 

The water is pitch black this time and has no noticeable temperature. It stretches like tar as Natsume trudges through it.

 

Time drags horribly. The black water pulls at his body with every laborious step. The weight of it is incredible and the depth feels fathomless. Rather than pushing off the bottom of the lake, Natsume is sure that he's sinking into the water and pushing away from it before even coming close to an edge, kept afloat only by the thickness of the slime.

 

  
As he walks, the dream solidifies more and more. The cave is a forest made of tightly packed, bowed trunks that flow up into a dome. The ancient wood is carved into - thin lines trace enormous scratches across many trunks, curling into circular shapes that Natsume can't focus on for long before the dream tears his eyes away.

 

There is - sound. A background hum of white noise that fills his attention when he concentrates on it, but fades out when he forgets it again. The noises of a forest follow that more constant noise; small things run and fly and chirp and coo somewhere far beyond the edge of the trees.

 

The only visible light rests on the opposite shore.

 

It does not move. It does not flicker. It burns as steady as a star.

 

He makes it most of the way across before falling down in exhaustion.

 

* * *

 

Another kind day passes. This time Natsume is actively suspicious of it.

 

He wakes slowly, strangely, and wipes helplessly at the tears streaming down his face, a sickening suspicion rising to clutch at his heart. Exhaustion clings to him as though he has spent the night splashing with agonizing slowness through a cave rather than tossing in his futon. He wakes cold. Stays cold.

 

He eats lunch suspicious. Tramps through the woods with the Dogs Circle suspicious. Watches Nyanko watching him and keeping a distinctly protective closeness with suspicion.

 

But Natsume has nothing to say. Nothing is wrong. Nothing bad is happening. He should be grateful.

 

Instead, it feels like a storm is coming.

 

* * *

 

For four long nights, the dream stays with him. It changes the water in every iteration. It's hot, it's solid, it's ice, it's drowningly deep and he must swim...

 

Each time he wakes, it feels like dying. He wakes feeling like he hasn't slept. Morning and night blend into one sun saturated nightmare of resignation.

 

The days are exhausting. The days are disturbingly peaceful. Natsume is chilled to the bone despite the coming summer, despite the heat of spring. It must be guarding him, attached to him, draining him, but no one else can sense anything or tell him what it means. Or else they do not want to.

 

Nyanko says nothing. The Dogs know nothing. Hinoe looks away silently and bites, delicately, at the stem of her pipe before telling him the same.

 

Somehow, Natsume feels that it isn't a lie in the same way it could be. There's some unspoken thing here, and it's soaring over his human head like a firefly.

 

A spirit in the forest near the paths does not know. The cicada scream. A small one in a pot outside Nanashuji does not know. _My lid - it's too hot!_ The old yokai by the drying pond does not know. A bird coos loudly, repetitively. Something flying deep in the shadows and playing with the leaves does not know. _Leave this place, human._ Mizusu does not know. He smiles wide and slow and says nothing about anything. Eyes closed serenely and resting on his crossed arms in the grass, he knows nothing. _Have you been sleeping well, Natsume?_

 

Whenever Natsume figures this out on his own, they will be mad at him about it, as always. The pain in his legs, the pain in his heart - the dream has slithered into reality, into his body. There has to be an answer _somewhere_.

 

* * *

 

Tanuma knows nothing, but it's different. A fellow human not knowing, floundering just as much as Natsume, is somehow relieving. When Tanuma sits quiet for a long moment and _thinks_ , and when Tanuma finally says that he _does not know_ \- Natsume believes him. Easily. Honestly.

 

Not because Tanuma is human, but because Tanuma is _human_.

 

There is an uneasy understanding coupled with an openly relieved honestly bridging the gap between them. Although Tanuma does not know, he wants to help and is glad to be trusted by Natsume. And Natsume is glad to trust him. It feels good, to have a friend to trust so fully. It feels kind. Kinder than anything else Natsume has known, save for the still raw care of Touko and Shigero.

 

Taki does not know, either. But she distracts Nyanko long enough to force him to leave Natsume's side for the first time in five days, and that matters just as much as her enthusiasm to help. Taki is still very new - an active energy where both Natume and Tanuma are more passive.

 

_Lazy boys_ , she calls them fondly, bringing a stack of dusty books down to the garden. They sit in the afternoon sun and leaf through books for hours, snickering over particularly ugly yokai doodles and making very little progress.

 

Usually, when Natsume is outside in the sun like this, he is running. Today he is not. It's novel - to relax with his friends at an impromptu picnic because they wanted to help him. He gets a little misty eyed, and pretends to fall asleep in the sun. Actually falls asleep.

 

Does not dream.

 

When he finally blinks awake, he's startled to find that twilight is setting in. Taki, too, has fallen asleep, although her earlier excitement made such a feat seem impossible. Tanuma is still awake, his glasses slipping down his nose, reading one of the tomes with a small flashlight.

 

Together they collect the books and cups and carefully wake Taki to head inside. She offers a half yawned goodnight as they set out, Nyanko sleeping heavy in Natsume's arms and Tanuma hefting an over prepared backpack.

 

They're nearly to the point where they must separate in the forest path when Tanuma stops suddenly. A nearly full moon rides overhead, and the night bugs have come out. The sky is still faintly purple in the summer evening. There is no wind, which is how Tanuma hears it - the owl.

 

It's majestic; it rests on a jutting branch high on a twisted pine, watching over the forest with incredible eyes. Natsume can't tell anything more in the fading light.

 

_An ill omen,_ Tanuma murmurs, squinting up at it. Natsume, whose talents do not lie in telling what is yokai, what is human, what is object, what is exorcist, what is curse, can only trust in that. Nyanko sleeps. The forest whispers. The owl coos back.

 

They walk home.

 

* * *

 

More than the exhaustion, more than the cold that even Nishimura's jacket on top of his own can't quell, Natsume is so inexplicably wrung out that he can barely breathe through the days. The dream is cinched tight around his heart, embedding thorns into his ventricles at every opportunity.

 

He'd had to feign lateness and run out of the house to escape Touko's gentle concern without breaking into sudden tears. It must have still looked bad, because Sensei let Natsume squeeze him like a pillow outside the fields without a word.

 

Sasada carefully asks him what's wrong in private on the roof during lunch and Natsume cries on her a little.

 

The terrible, wrenching heartbreak of the dream pours out of him, leaking from whatever bowl has held it all in so far. It cracks without him even noticing at first; tears just suddenly well up without his approval.

 

It's incredibly embarrassing, but her instant rush to reassure him feels nice, and she lets him sit beside her against the wall and sniffle for a few minutes. She shares her lunch with him, even though he has Touko's bento, just to make him feel better, and it almost makes him cry more.

 

Natsume is both touched and willing to hide from her for the rest of the year. Everything is too complicated right now.

 

The bowl isn't empty. He could easily cry more. He doesn't want to - on the roof of the school, with Sasada to bear awkward witness, with only the phantom pain of a dream to account for it all. There's no real point to these awful feelings and letting them overwhelm him won't help any.

 

Natsume dries his tears on his sweater after a small eternity.

 

Sasada's willingness to punch _whatever nasty spirit it is_  wrings a laugh out of him and finally clears his eyes. He's more clear headed, after, and feels more present, more real.

 

It might be the delirium, but he really loves his friends.

 

* * *

 

_We'll figure it out soon,_ Taki promises, bruises under her eyes from staying up late. Natsume feels bad about it, but he can't very well tell her to _stop_. Taki does not listen to such things, such logic. Such heartbroken misunderstandings of friendship and care.

 

It is the eighth day, and Natsume has transcended human levels of tired. He has not slept and woke up feeling like it was a true sleep since Taki's, all those blurry days ago. He honestly doesn't even feel it anymore. Yes, he could pass out right here and now unprompted and sleep for a thousand years, but it feels unreal, unlikely, to be able to sleep peacefully at all. To sleep. To dream. To -

 

_We'll figure it out soon,_ they promise, looking at Natsume like he's small, like they want to protect him but can't. Touko and Shigero's eyes carry the same message, although they don't say the same words. It's almost worse, from them; he feels like a disappointment, to be causing them worry. He's just tired. He's just _tired_.

 

He's been kept home from school, which, aside from bringing on another round of ridiculous tears, is a bit relieving. Natsume can't remember - was there a group project today, or had that been a few days ago? A paper? A solo project? There is something about today that is especially mournful, and Natsume just doesnt have the existence left to remember it. Everything is fuzzy.

 

He's drifting helplessly, locked from sleep. The futon rises around his floating body like water, holding him up with his own salt. The blankets are piled high, and he is still cold.

 

_We'll figure it out soon._

 

They do not.

 

* * *

 

This time, the _lakeriverpuddle_  is behind him. This time he is not barefoot. A pair of simple shoes make tracks in the silty sand as he walks slowly forward, dragging a great swath of soaked, white fabric behind him.

 

Had he been naked before? He can't remember.

 

He's barely able to stop himself from accidentally walking past the light. It shrank as he grew closer, condensing into a tiny ball the size of a marble.

 

It still floats, emitting a great, soft light that fills the cave.

 

Loneliness fills the cave, as well. Its a painful, bone deep longing that has been tugging Natsume forward by the heartstrings for nine long nights. His chest aches. His eyes water. His feet ache from walking.

 

Natsume raises his palms and accepts the star.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate that the anime tried to save Natsume from the fate of a White Haired Anime Boy, but it's a good aesthetic so sorry bud, but back into peril u go


	2. Rooting

* * *

 

Natsume wakes suddenly and slowly to the blurry shape of Touko fixing his blankets, a tray with tea and water by his bed. A gentle, cool touch to his forehead prompts him to try to speak, to move his dry lips and say - _thank you_ or  _I'm fine_ or _please, stay_. He isn't sure anything comes out at all. Sensei is a warm, heavy coal on his chest.

 

For an entire day, Natsume sleeps.

 

* * *

 

A day without Natsume is a day drenched in fear.

 

Tanuma and Taki meet briefly in the hall to resignedly murmur _no progress_ to one another and then share a yawn. A guilty look follows, with the image of Natsume's heavily bruised eyes floating between them like a cutting wind.

 

They feel they have no right to claim tiredness. Voluntarily staying up in the night and being a little out of it the next day is nothing. Nothing at all.

 

Natsume looks - less than a spirit, he looks like a ghost. The kind of false-pale thing that appears on TV screens and lurks under sheets. 

 

He's always had a certain paleness, something that marks him as frail and prone to fainting, but over the last few days he's steadily lost what little color he had. His once soft white hair is limp and ragged, even his usually bright eyes look dull.

 

It has always been Natsume's eyes that people noticed first. The unusual hair color can be attributed to the glare of the sun, or called light blonde from a distance, but there is no mistaking those eyes.

 

Tanuma had never seen golden eyes before. He hasn't since, either.

 

The color only enhances the real issue, however - Natsume has an arresting stare. He doesn't mean to, but there is a weight to his look, a quiet power in his steady, searing gaze, a strange magnetism in how easily he finds the eyes of others. It doesn't seem to matter how deep in thought he is, it only takes a small movement or a quiet call of his name to draw his eyes instantly, with an uncanny precision.

 

Before Tanuma had really known Natsume, before he had learned his kindness, that piercing look had left him feeling pinned. His words would die in his throat and the sheer power that radiated from Natsume was enough to make him dizzy. It still is, sometimes.

 

Growing used to Natsume's aura took a bit of time. Tanuma never let his friend know that - he would feel bad about it, and it was something wholly beyond his control, anyway. Tanuma had dealt quietly with the slight lightheadedness that prolonged exposure to Natsume used to bring on as well as the occasional anxiety attack from meeting him suddenly or being too close by when he drew on his power. 

 

Thankfully, Tanuma has slowly developed a resistance to it, and has found himself having less and less pain associated with his own power.

 

So when he walks into class during lunch on the ninth day and there is no Natsume, it is a very different kind of pain that grips his heart.

 

Nishimura and Kitamoto are leaning together over one of their desks and whispering, but stop and wait for Tanuma once they see him. See his face when he understands the lonely desk missing its Natsume. They gesture fiercely, but with a careful furtiveness, as if pretending not to wave over the desk will make the rest of the room notice less.

 

Tanuma approaches reluctantly, unsure what to say. _Yes, Natsume is sick. Yes, he hasn't been feeling well recently. No, Tanuma does not know anything else. No, they probably shouldn't visit. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, excuse me.  
_

 

The door slides shut slowly, carefully, as Tanuma tries his hardest to not looks like he's holding his breath.

 

He wishes he knew more. He wishes he knew how to help.

 

* * *

 

Taki arrives just in time to see Tanuma shutting the classroom door, no Natsume in sight. Her first thought is one of relief. _Good_. He must be at home with Touko and Shigerou and Nyanko and the others who can actually help him.

 

She's a little glad of it. There's something incredibly relieving about letting adults take care of things like this - _yes_ , it's a spiritual matter that can only be deferred to Natsume himself, but they can't treat a fever. Don't know how to properly check head wounds. Aren't very good at wrapping wounds. If anyone can make Natsume feel a least a little better in this circumstance, it will be Touko. It will be Touko who takes care of this part, who takes care of Natsume while they struggle.

 

Actually, they probably should have turned him over to her earlier. It's hard to get delicate translations done while Natsume lies in a blanket bundle on the couch, shifting unhappily every few minutes.

 

They'd needed him around to give any hints he could - they'd wanted him around anyway, out of worry and care and love - but he'd been steadily losing coherence as time passed. What started out as clear explanations of what he could remember of his dream turned slowly, falteringly, into repetition and confused descriptions.

 

Taki had thought it was the same dream, over and over again, shifting in the ways that dreams did naturally. Tanuma hovered in agreement, but deferred to Natsume tiredly insisting it was different, despite repeating the same story again and again and again. Only the detail of the ground changed. Human dreams dreamt by normal humans were hard enough to understand; this was a whole new level of confusion. And the longer they drifted in uncertainty, the more it hurt Natsume.

 

Natsume, who would keep muttering the same things and twisting and tugging at the blankets, only behaving when carefully held down by a worried Tanuma, had been a distraction. Taki felt a little bad thinking it, but it had been true. And it would only get worse. She needed quiet time away from him - they both did - to figure this out.

 

And they _will_ figure this out.

 

* * *

 

It is Tanuma and Taki, alone in her grandfather's shed that night, that hear the owl again.

 

Taki would have ignored it - _an owl in the night, what of it?_ \- but Tanuma, in the middle of shifting boxes, freezes up. Slowly lowers the crate of scrolls to the ground and stares pensively out the window.

 

Taki has been reading tiny scrawl for three hours, so she takes the distraction happily, rubbing at her eyes and joining him by the wall, away from the yellow light of the lamp. She's tried to tell him to go home once already; he's flexing his wrists carefully where the boxes have been digging into his arms. But the simple fact was that he couldn't read her grandfather's writing well. Taki had years of practice over both Tanuma and Natsume, and so he had drawn the short straw and got stuck with pile control and passing her new tomes. Or maybe it was Taki who had the bad deal - her legs are cramping and her eyes ache.

 

But so what? They could be cured by sleeping for a single night. Natsume couldn't.

 

Tanuma wouldn't leave and neither would she.

 

"An owl," Tanuma says at length. "When Natsume and I walked back the other day, there was an owl then, too."

 

Taki can only hum quietly at that. _An owl in the night._ But it may be something. Something else in the night, or - worse, somehow.

 

With the refreshed memories of her grandfather's words in her mind, Taki mentally shifts through what there was on owls. Slowly, she blinks, and lowers her arms from their stretch, staring sightlessly out the window, listening to another round of coos from the treeline.

 

_...souls...good or bad...human souls...trapped...not considered yokai..._

 

What her grandfather had to say on owls were ghost stories. Nothing like what Natsume usually dealt with. Nothing at all like Taki's experiences. Maybe it was something else, then. Like the little bird yokai Natsume had told them about. Or the little fox. It might just look like an owl to them, but perhaps to Natsume -

 

Taki takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, making her decision quickly. They were making little progress in finding anything in the papers; the owl was _right there_ , a potential opportunity that could be investigated. But the section she _just_ found had mentioned chills and icy skin but paired with aggression, and it would be good to finish it up just in case.

 

"Tanuma -" She begins, just as Tanuma says, "I can -"

 

They blink at each other. The owl coos. _Ah._

 

* * *

 

Taki races through the yard toward the trees, searching for the owl. Tanuma blocks the last of the golden light from the doorway. The familiar ground feels better on her feet than the mats ever had. She knows this land well, and she will find this creature, this yokai, this owl, if it helps Natsume.

 

A sharp reflection hits off of the beam of her flashlight and she pivots to track it.

 

The silent owl stares back at her from its low perch. It looks like every other owl she's ever seen. The enormous yellow eyes glow under the light and its sharp ear tufts stick straight up. The color - its an odd shock to realize that it reminds her of Natsume. She feels silly to think such a thing. _It's an owl._ That's the color eyes owls have. _It's not weird._

 

It blinks once, slowly, and shakes its feathers. Gets comfortable on the branch as it looks away from her. Doesn't move.

 

_An owl._

 

That's all.

 

* * *

 

When she returns quietly to the shed, Tanuma is asleep at the makeshift desk, the page still open to the entry she found.

 

She huffs fondly, feeling more awake now. He can go home; she'll take over from here for the night. That entry is probably useless, anyway. His glasses are smushed against his face.

 

His skin is freezing against her palm.

 

Tanuma doesn't wake up.

 

* * *

 


End file.
